Gears of War 4 Beta Impressions : Not What You Came Looking For

While the official launch date of Gears of War 4 is October 11th, Developer The Coalition and Microosft has not only opened it up for Pre-orders, but the multiplayer is up for beta testing. Its now open to all to give you chance to experience what it will be like when it comes out, except that it will be much smoother.

So is it something really amazing? If thats what you expected, its going to disappoint you. Majority of GOW4 follows the old style of  finding  weapons, taking cover, and blasting around corners. The game doest have bit of twist, but I seriously hope The Coalition has more than on trick up their sleeve to impress gamers who been playing the series for too long.

Now lets take a closer look:

Unreal Engine 4 & Impressive Graphics

GOW 4 is build on Unreal Engine 4 which has bombed up the graphics big time, you will notice this specially during matchmaking, and in maps. Everything is pretty sharp, and one of the maps will make you feel like you actually on water levels. The character animations are pretty good as well.

Game Play:

While majority of the gameplay is exactly the same, there is one new thing which helps you take down an enemy behind a barrier. This comes into action when you and your enemy are back to back. Popular called as “vault over cover”, this technique lets you jump across and take down. You will have to get used to it though because button used for melee, and this are the same. Many a time I ended up putting my head into enemies hand.

Weapons:

You have a new weapon that is useful to take down an enemy hiding behind covers.  Dropshot –It’s  like a weapon version of “Vault Over Cover”. Its a flying explosive that can be landed right behind you , and boom. Its pretty fast, and only if you realise in time, you can jump over to save yourself.

Aside from this, you have the same old weapons including Lance and Gnasher, but they come with faster re-loading time which you are going to love to take down enemies who just missed the first bullet.

Match Making & Game Types:

As of now Match Making have its own hiccups, but it worked  for me most of the times. Its expected, and its also the primary reason why the company is testing their servers so early of their launch. So bear with it. Microsoft is testing its Azure Servers, and expect lot of tweaks based on locations.

When it comes to game types and maps, you have three of each.

• Game Type : Team Death Match, Dodgeball and Co-op Team Death Match against Hardcore AI Bots.
• Maps : Dam, Harbor and Foundation.

If you are with Gears of War for the first time, pick up Co-op mode to get the feel of how fast action paced the game is, but if you are GWO Veteran, Team Death Match is just for you. Along with this, you have Dodgeball, which is new, and we really need more of things like this in final version.

In Dodgeball, you re-spawn when en enemy is killed. This means it could be a long waiting time for you respawn or respawn rather quickly depending on how good your teammates are.

So how is it again ?

While its good to see GOW with brilliant graphics, I had more expectations, specially on the game play front but it still ticks to the old style.I hope things get better. Good thing is that GOW 4 Beta is only 7 GB to download.